MASTERCLASS Expert guidance for practice and performance

Berlioz’s Harold in Italy

BY DONALD MCINNES
VIOLIST AND TEACHER. USC THORNTON SCHOOL OF MUSIC. US

THE FIRST THING to keep in mind about Hector Berlioz’s Paganini and steer clear of the piece, finding that it doesn’t
Harold in Italy is that it is not a viola concerto but a tone poem, offer enough scope for their virtuosity. And most conductors
or - as the composer called it - a ‘symphony with a principal would rather do the Symphonie fantastique anyway, so Harold
viola’. Paganini, who commissioned the piece, was the first to in Italy can be a hard piece to programme. I was lucky to give
recognise this fact, and indeed gave it back to the composer, the first of my many performances of it in 1976 with
famously complaining that there were too many rests in the solo Leonard Bernstein and the French National Orchestra. (The
part. Unfortunately, even today there are players who think like fingerings in the examples are taken from that performance.)

FIRST MOVEMENT You have to be very careful not to take from the third one onwards, I use
Harold in Italy is based on Byron’s poem the Allegro too fast. Berlioz wrote one bow for each note. As more and
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. The solo viola dotted crotchet (♩.)=104 and he includes more instruments join in, you are not
represents the title character, who very detailed markings all the way going to be heard anyway, but at least
wanders through different landscapes through to the end, often writing ‘a bit it looks good, and they know what
and situations but is unable to relate to faster’ or ‘quicken a bit’, until he arrives you are doing!
them. Instead it plays just one motif, at the coda. This should be ‘twice as fast
which Berlioz called the idée fixe. You as the original allegro’, and then there is SECOND MOVEMENT
basically have to play loud all the one last hair-raising dash for the double I don’t think I have ever heard anybody
time, just to be heard above the huge bar. If you begin too fast, all this will be shape the second movement as
orchestra. To qualify this: whatever lost. Of course, this is in many ways a beautifully as Bernstein - he made an
contrasts you want to achieve must be conductor’s piece, but a good conductor arch, or a rainbow, out of it. The viola
done through changes of colour, mood will bow to the soloist in certain places, starts hesitatingly in bar 60 (example 5)
and pacing. The viola’s first entry in such as the retenu marking in bars like an improvisation, full of anxiety
bar 38, with the symphony’s idée fixe 141-2 (example 2), which should be led before settling into the idée fixe in bar 64.
(example 1), is not typical since it is by the soloist. It is equally important for It’s almost as if the F sharp is encircled
accompanied by just the harp (make the soloist to have a clear idea of what from above and below, each note having
sure to spell out the dotted rhythms the conductor is doing. its own expressive mark.
against the harp’s sextuplets). At bar 50, The semiquaver (♪) ♪ runs beginning at I must have spent hours practising
though, the violins enter, providing a bar 193 (example 3) have to be perfectly the famous passage in arpeggios that
kind of halo, while at the same time the even, and you can’t help yourself along starts in bar 169 (example 6). There
viola is being required to play ‘as softly with accents. Avoid ‘sliding’ fingerings are 79 bars of them, and you can’t do
as possible’. Here you need to lighten the as much as possible, and keep to the anything that will interfere with what
bow but still play with the same volume original slurs. The last note of each run the orchestra is doing. In rehearsal with
and a less expressive, narrower vibrato. needs an accent, but it has to be made Bernstein, I questioned the ponticello
This gives a stillness to the sound that with bow speed - if you change the bow marking, suggesting that we should
doesn’t come from how soft you play, for it, you get a different kind of sound. try the passage without it. He said it
but from how evenly you play. It’s a At bar 319,1 always play at whatever wouldn’t work but agreed to try it. He
trick, but it does work. (It’s a little like the dynamic level the woodwind arrives at was right: it just wouldn’t blend and you
opening of the Sibelius Violin Concerto.) in the previous bar, because it is one long couldn’t hear the viola. The ponticello
When the tutti comes in bar 73, cascade. The solo viola is marked p, and playing is essential for balance and
playing the idée fixe one beat ahead the section pp, so you might not be able for cutting through the woodwind
of the viola, you must play each note to hear the section play. texture. I only go back to ordinario at the
on a separate bow, emphasising them At the build-up from bar 352 very end, when the quavers (♪) start.
almost unmusically. The canon won’t (example 4), each phrase needs more This ending is hard to gauge, because
be heard otherwise. bow than the previous one, and the orchestra has practically stopped

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1 Stay at the same volume when the violins enter at bar 50, but use a less expressive, narrower vibrato

2 The retenu at bar 141 should be led by the soloist

3 The semiquaver runs must be perfectly even

4 Use more bow for each phrase from bar 352 onwards

5 The viola should sound full of anxiety from bar 60 in the second movement

playing, and the transition into Starting at bar 167, Berlioz juggles believe that Berlioz wanted to
quavers has to be perfectly even. the three main motifs simultaneously. reinforce the solo instrument’s sound,
The first time you play the piece, this because violas were mostly very
THIRD MOVEMENT takes some getting used to. You can’t small in his day.
The third movement finds Harold in let the cross-rhythm disturb you - it When the idée fixe returns in bar 81
a beautiful mountain landscape, but has to be perfectly in time. Slow (example 9), Harold seems to have
nothing seems to influence him to down only at the very end, and not trouble remembering the tune. The
begin with. The viola keeps to the too much, otherwise it will fall apart. viola plays sections of it one note at a
idée fixe, now doubled by the whole time, prompted by the clarinets. I
string section (bar 72). Here I change FOURTH MOVEMENT play the whole passage on the D and
bows with each new pitch. The Bernstein tore attacca into the last G strings, using vibrato selectively
passage starting at bar 111 (example movement - it was incredibly exciting for expression: the D in bar 81 with
7) marks the only moment in the and that’s one reason why orchestras vibrato, the B in the next bar without,
whole symphony when Harold gets loved him so much. The role of the then increasing the vibrato towards
into a different mood - suddenly he is viola in the finale is to recapitulate the C in bar 83. In the following
waxing rhapsodical and even swings several motifs from the previous phrase I leave the F natural in bar 87
into a kind of waltz. You can’t take movements. The first reminiscence, without vibrato. I give more sound to
much rhythmic freedom here, but I which comes in bar 14 (example 8), the B and D (bars 92-3), then less and
play around a bit with the bow speed is in octaves with the bassoon. Don’t less with each subsequent note. Don’t
and bow distribution, ending the attempt to blend with it: the bassoon let the crescendo that is boiling up in
passage with a big diminuendo in bar should sound like a shadow of the the orchestra affect you. This is a
122. You can afford it here, because solo viola. There is a similar doubling wonderful moment if you play with
the viola is on its own. in bar 289 of the first movement. I controlled quietness. >

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6 Playing the arpeggios sul ponticello is essential from bar 169

7 Stay at the same volume when the violins enter at bar 50, but use a less expressive, narrower vibrato

8 At bar 14 of the fourth movement, the bassoon should sound like a shadow of the viola

9 Play with controlled quietness from bar 92

10 Use bow distribution and colouring to play the 'sighs' with enormous expression

In the following tutti, you should be is just one of those moments to die for. down before the final, huge crescendo,
able to stand there without getting in The trio has diminuendo while the viola although I start it two bars earlier than
the way, and appearing to be involved has crescendo, so the viola comes out of marked (at bar 499 rather than 501).
in what's happening during your 374 nowhere and takes over the sound of the I play the coda along with the viola
bars' rest. The worst thing you can do orchestra. section, starting in bar 554 and
here is to look at the audience. Play the ‘sighs’ from bar 493 with continuing to the end.
There are several moments in this enormous expression, which is INTERVIEW BY CARLOS MARÍA SOLARE

43-minute piece that just make you achieved through bow distribution and
gasp, and the viola's final entrance with colouring, giving the second note of
the backstage string trio (example 10) each bar very little bow. Dynamics go

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